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“This is, flat out, one of the best Hollywood memoirs ever written… An absolute treasure,” raves Booklist in a starred review of Norman Lear’s memoir, Even This I Get to Experience.

The creator of such iconic and unprecedented hit shows as “All in the Family,” “Maude,” “Good Times,” “The Jeffersons,” and “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman,” Lear reinvented television comedy in the ‘70s. At one point, he had nine shows on the air, and at their peak, his programs were watched by 120 million people a week.

Now, Lear is telling his story, from his Depression-era days growing up with a dad sent to jail for scheming to sell fake bonds, to becoming the highest-paid comedy writer in the country, working for Danny Thomas, Jerry Lewis, Dean Martin, Martha Raye, and George Gobel. A member of a B-17 bomber crew in WWII, Lear made it onto Richard Nixon’s “Enemies List” and was presented with the National Medal of the Arts by President Clinton.

Dave Itzkoff, writing about Even This I Get to Experience in the New York Times, cites Lear’s influence on Roseanne Barr, Rob Reiner, and Trey Parker. Itzkoff quotes Parker, creator and producer of “South Park” with Matt Stone, as saying that Lear’s work “had an immeasurable impact on that show and its satirical, scared-cow-slaughtering sensibility.”

Now, in his book out today from Penguin Press, we all can read of the events and people that had an immeasurable impact on Norman Lear, and shaped his sensibility.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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Edward A. Zelinsky is the Morris and Annie Trachman Professor of Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva University. He is the author of The Origins of the Ownership Society: How The Defined Contribution Paradigm Changed America. In the article below he looks at the Clinton’s federal tax returns.

President and Senator Clinton’s federal tax returns provide much fodder for commentators who are debating a diverse set of questions in light of those returns: Has Mr. Clinton understandably maximized his post-presidential income in our celebrity-crazed culture – or has he exploited the presidency for unseemly financial gain? Does the Clintons’ private foundation reflect a worthy model of charitable giving – or the federal fisc’s subsidization of Senator Clinton’s presidential candidacy? Was Mr. Clinton financial relationship with Yucaipa appropriate for a former president – or for the spouse of a prospective president?

The Clintons’ tax returns raise one further issue which also requires public discussion: The federal subsidy the Clintons have received over the last seven years while earning in excess of $100 million. Mr. Clinton’s aggressive pursuit of post-presidential income is incompatible with the extensive public support he has received from federal taxpayers since leaving office. That public support was designed to preclude the nation’s chief executives from facing financial hardship after their terms of office. It was not intended to subsidize the aggressive pursuit of a post-presidential fortune.

The federal taxpayer’s subsidy of Mr. Clinton has several components. First, as a former president, Mr. Clinton is entitled to receive, for the remainder of his life, the salary of a cabinet secretary. That salary is today $191,000 per annum. In addition, as a former president, Mr. Clinton also receives, at taxpayer expense, “suitable office space appropriately furnished and equipped.” Mr. Clinton’s office in New York City costs federal taxpayers over $700,000 per year to lease and operate. Federal taxpayers also defray the salary and benefits for office staff and some of Mr. Clinton’s travel outlays. The General Services Administration currently budgets for all of these costs a yearly total of $1,162,000 for Mr. Clinton. The equivalent annual figures for former President Bush and former President Carter are $786,000 and $518,000 respectively.

In addition, Mr. Clinton is also entitled, at taxpayer expense, to Secret Service protection for the remainder of his lifetime – even though, as president, Mr. Clinton signed legislation limiting Secret Service protection for his successors to the first ten years after they leave office.

For most Americans, Mr. Clinton’s package would constitute a heady lifestyle. For President and Senator Clinton, however, this post-presidential package merely provided a tax-financed base for the aggressive pursuit of unprecedented financial gain for a former chief executive.

Mr. Clinton has apparently treated as tax-free much of the federal largesse he has received. While the Clintons’ federal tax returns report as taxable income his cabinet-level salary payments, he has apparently elected to exclude from his taxable income the other benefits he receives, namely, his federally-financed office, staff, travel costs and protection.

If the Clintons had treated these items as taxable, they most likely would have been reported on their Forms 1040 on line 21 for “other income”. On the Clintons’ 1040 for 2006, line 21 is blank, suggesting that they did not include in income the office, staff, travel costs or protection provided to them by federal taxpayers.

The tax-free treatment of this federal subsidy of Mr. Clinton makes it particularly valuable for him.

This post-presidential package and the federal subsidy it represents were not intended as a conventional deferred compensation arrangement. They instead reflect the judgment that former presidents should not be required to hustle in the marketplace after they leave office.

The story of an impoverished Ulysses Grant, financially-impelled to write his memoirs as he was dying of cancer, is an iconic image of American history. From this tragedy, the world received one of the great military autobiographies of all time. However, most Americans would prefer that the nation’s former leaders not confront the kind penury which plagued Grant at the end of his life.

The immediate stimulus for the modern post-presidential compensation package was the report that former president Truman lacked the resources to return his mail from the American public.

This post-presidential package was designed to preclude Grant’s and Truman’s successors from experiencing the financial problems they confronted. It was not intended to serve as a federal subsidy for the aggressive pursuit of a post-presidential fortune.

President Clinton is not required to accept all or any of the proffered subsidy from the federal Treasury. He can also make a payment to the federal fisc reimbursing it, in whole or in part, for the costs of this subsidy. Such reimbursement could, for example, be geared to the taxes Mr. Clinton would pay if his post-presidential benefits were treated as taxable income.

The federal taxpayers provide post-presidential benefits so that former chief executives will not replicate the unfortunate financial history of Grant or even the more moderate financial discomfort in which President Truman found himself. We do not subsidize former presidents so that they may pursue lucrative private sector careers. As a federal taxpayer subsidizing Mr. Clinton’s lifestyle, I hope he feels my pain.

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Aeschylus

"And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God."

I 've teamed up with a group of bloggers on blog catalog today who are blogging to stop abuse.

Everyday we read the horrifying details of some form of abuse in the newspaper. Whether the article is about the victim or the perpetrator it's origin is always the same, the plot always familiar, and the results life altering. By blogging together in an effort to stop abuse, we're in fact saying no more abuse, no way, not on our watch!


It's horrifying to read that some 40 million children are subject to abuse this year alone, and that many of that number, will never speak of it. Their perpetrators will move on and the world will keep turning in much the same way, except in the eyes of the child involved. For them, their nightmarish existence will continue somewhere in the back of their mind, for the rest of their lives. The victim of abuse retreats into a secret silent world of introspection, often developing an inappropriate inner dialogue of distorted ideas about themselves and the world around them.


Anyone whose experienced abuse has endured an unbreathable pain, that most of us can't begin to understand.
The child abuse victims today are our future tomorrow, and will join a society of bankers, lawyers, doctors, mothers, fathers, etc...

The heartbreaking number of combined abuse statistics has the semblance of a battleground lost to a powerful enemy. That is to say, the combined statistics are emotionally disturbing, to overwhelming a concept to comprehend. Nevertheless, if we work together educating ourselves and others on what we can do as a society to prevent abuse, then we have the framework for a battle won.

When I think of the wasted years and lives of just the few people I know who have suffered from abuse it's horrifying. We must be careful not desensitize ourselves or worse yet, develop an attitude of indifference to the way we think about abuse.

Indifference, to me, is the most intolerable of emotions, the likes of which will rear its ugly head and devour us if we're not careful. What I mean is, what we're indifferent about will often come back to haunt us in the most poetic sense of the word.

When we see signs of abuse or something wrong, we must trust our instincts and do something about what we're feeling or thinking. When we accept a more popular view rather than follow our own instincts, we lose the capacity to be honest with ourselves and others. This attitude breeds tolerance for certain behaviors that at one time, we might have deemed unacceptable.

Here is the link to a post I wrote on an incident I witnessed involving child abuse. I feel I was guilty of the very thing I'm protesting here.

Because, the event happened in a public area, I questioned my ability to judge whether it was considered abuse. Then to my astonishment I saw there wasn't anyone else reacting either to a three year old child being slapped across the face! (Not even the security guard in the waiting area.)

In addition, others in the waiting room, including the perpetrator, looked at me as if they wished to say, " Mind your own business." I felt like saying, "Forgive me, but your child is screaming and you're more worried about me staring at you!"

Well there you have it, my contribution to and public support of a social community obviously dedicated to the "power of the pen." A virtue I admire and am honored to have been a part.

Please feel free to check out the link to my post "Spanking Where Do You Draw The Line?" and please understand this post is not against parents spanking their children. What the post is meant to suggest is the lack of this Mother's ability to draw the line, between what is spanking and what is abuse.

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